1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote control system constructed in such a manner that an electronic device serving as a control device can control an electronic device serving as a device to be controlled, to electronic devices serving as a control device and a device to be controlled which form this remote control system, and to a program which is executed by these electronic devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, portable-type cordless telephones such as cellular phones or PHS (Personal Handyphone System) have come into wide use. Against such a background, at the current situation, various technologies in which this cordless telephone is made to function as a remote controller in order to allow electronic devices to be controlled have been proposed.
As an example, in a patent application (example 1) which is made public as Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 6-164747, a configuration in which a wireless phone and a cellular phone are provided to remotely control a video cassette recorder is disclosed. In this configuration, when an operation for controlling the video cassette recorder is performed on the cellular phone, this operation information is transmitted to the wireless phone in a wireless manner. The wireless phone has a video control signal transmission section for transmitting a command to the video cassette recorder by using an infrared signal. In response to the reception of the operation information transmitted in the above-described manner, the wireless phone wirelessly transmits a command as an infrared signal to the video cassette recorder from the video control signal transmission section. Then, in the video cassette recorder, an operation corresponding to the received command signal is performed.
Also, in a patent application (example 2) which is made public as Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-153952, a configuration is disclosed in which, when operation information corresponding to the operation performed on a PHS terminal is wirelessly transmitted from this PHS terminal to the control device, the operation information command received by the control device is transmitted to a specified electronic device among various electronic devices.
More specifically, in the inventions of these examples 1 and 2, a configuration is adopted in which operation information transmitted from a cordless phone possessed by a user is converted into a command by which a relay (wireless phone, control device) can control an electronic device to be controlled, and this command is transmitted.
Furthermore, in a patent application (example 3) which is made public as Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-284757, the following remote control system has been proposed.
In this invention, assuming that a portable terminal is connected to a network via a base station, a server is provided as a central station on the network. Furthermore, a configuration in which a household VTR, which is an electronic device to be controlled, can also be connected to the network, is adopted.
Then, the portable terminal communicates with the central station from the base station over the network, thereby obtaining information of an electronic program guide from the central station, and displays it. The user performs a recording reservation operation while viewing this displayed electronic program guide. In the portable terminal, this recording reservation is transmitted from the base station to the VTR over the network. In the VTR, a recording reservation operation is performed by using the received recording reservation information.
In a patent application (example 4) as a Japanese Utility Patent Application Publication No. 7-8610, a configuration in which a plurality of types of devices can be controlled by one remote controller is disclosed.
However, in the remote control system disclosed, for example, by each of the above-described patent applications, examples 1 and 2 require that a user have a dedicated device for constructing a system having a function as a relay, such as a wireless phone or a control device. Furthermore, as long as a device serving as a relay exists, targets of devices which can be remotely controlled, and variations of operation are limited. Even if the number of devices to be remotely controlled is to be increased, for example, hardware and software need to be replaced with new ones. Therefore, it is difficult for an ordinary end user to expand them with ease.
In contrast, in the system of example 3, for the connection between the portable terminal and the VTR, a network is provided therein only. Therefore, although it is not necessary for the user to have a device like a relay, only by accessing the server on the network, information of the electronic program guide, which is a GUI (Graphical User Interface), for a recording reservation operation, can be obtained.
Regarding expandability in example 3, also, variations of control devices capable of performing remote control and variations of operations depend on the contents of a database possessed by the central station which is a server. Therefore, the user's desire is not met, and the expansion cannot be said to be high at all.
For the remote controller disclosed in example 4, according to the described contents thereof, for example, a program is stored in a fixed manner so that a remote control operation corresponding to a specific device determined in advance as a control target (an air conditioner, illumination, a television receiver, a VTR, etc.) can be obtained. Therefore, this remote controller also does not have high expandability either. Also, as a device which performs an operation for remote control, in this case, for example, a dedicated remote controller is necessary. Therefore, this also lacks general-purpose characteristic as well.